ICE Raid in RI, the People Respond

On the Providence, Rhode Island ICE raids and community response. [Italiano]

7/15/2008
Over 150 community members rallied at the ICE office in downtown Providence where many immigrants were held after a raid today. More than 30 janitorial workers were at several State buildings.

The 'La Red de Defensa' rapid response network set up by the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, went into affect, calling out hundreds of migrant people, union members, community groups, clergy and progressive individuals from all over the Providence area.

The protestors made human blockades at the exits of the facility, using direct action to delay and resist the transport of the imprisoned immigrant people. We made a strong show of community power and indignation to fascistic immigration policy.

We will continue to stand together to resist the criminalization of migrant people! Stay alert for updates on how to help bring justice for the detainees, and continue to resist the criminalization of immigrant people.

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Comments (6 of 6)

ICE is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It is a fairly new acronym, but I've seen it frequently of late. Best I can tell, it is under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, another recent invention.

The US has a huge number of recent immigrants at this time, many of whom are not officially citizens. ICE is charged with the peculiar form of law enforcement for that portion of the population.

It's not so much that many of the recent immigrants aren't citizens that makes the situation interesting, it's the fact that many of the immigrants have failed to ask permission of The State to move. Which I think rather cool of them myself.

Coyote - It's less a question of failing to ask permission in an open act of defiance, so much as a recognition of the futility of going through the legal channels of gaining citizenship. it is a prohibitively long and expensive process, which necessarily biases the immigration system in favor of people from rich (white) countries and against those who are less fortunate.

Reports from members of First of May Anarchist Alliance on rallies in support of Justice for Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Martin is the African-American teen-ager shot and killed in Florida by a vigilante. The killer, George Zimmerman, a man with close ties to the police and the courts (his father was U.S. Magistrate Judge) was arrested 45 days after the murder, but only after mass mobilizations around the country demanding justice. here are reports from First of May (M1) members in Baltimore, Detroit, and Minneapolis-St.Paul. (The Twin Cities Report also includes an update from a friend and Fellow Workers in the I.W.W.)

On the weekend of October 1st and 2nd a neo-nazi group calling itself the Hammer Skin Nation held it's annual music festival, Hammerfest at a little known restaurant and bar called the Georgia Peach. That same weekend the NAACP held a march in protest of the racist slogans that the owner of the Georgia peach, Patrick Lanzo, has been putting on the marquee outside of his bar. The march attracted roughly 50-60 people.

This May Immigration Canada passed down their decision to reject Wendy Maxwell Edwards' (AKA Queen Nzinga) application for permanent residence on Humanitarian and Compassionate Grounds. Our fine sister Nzinga was deported in March, while her application was still pending

In the U.S., February is Black History Month. This is a good time to review the life of Malcolm X, one of the great leaders of the Black Liberation movement of the 60s. Anarchism, as an overall theory, is well-known to be rather loose and eclectic. Therefore anarchists have taken a great deal from other schools of thought, such as Marxism, feminism, Queer theory, ecology, radical psychoanalysis, post-modernism, etc. In my opinion, revolutionary anarchists also have much to learn from the life and thinking of Malcolm X.

On Saturday, February 6th, 2009 at least 300, and by some estimates possibly as many as 500, people turned out in the city of Riverside California to demand an end to the raids, harassment, and racial profiling increasingly being conducted by US Border Patrol agents against the residents of our local communities and workplaces

Words like shock and horror do not do enough to express our disgust before the hate crime perpetrated Saturday afternoon against the Chicoutimi Mosque. We who are active every day tearing down these borders built of prejudices, violence, oppression, privilege and ignorance, are saddened by this new manifestation of a system of oppression – racism – that is widespread where we live. [Français]

illvox.org is excited to launch its new Join the Movement page, which compiles resources for those interested in getting active in the Anarchist People of Color movement.

The page is viewable at illvox.org/join/ and is the only web resource for those interested in forming APOC collectives, a list of APOC collectives and ways for supporters to help the APOC movement to grow.

The published page is an initial draft that compiles many of the resources currently available on illvox.org as well as adds new materials to the mix. Suggestions, additions and ideas are welcomed. Please pass the word about illvox.org/join/ for building new APOC collectives and more.

The Green Mountain Collective, NEFAC (composed of members of the VT AFL-CIO, the Vermont worker co-op movement, the Student Labor Action Project, and the Vermont Workers’ Center) finds the reports posted online by Thomas Rowley, and Odem on GreenMountainDaily.com alleging that the Second Vermont Republic (SRV) has official ties to racists and right-wing extremists to be very disturbing.